The Cochinchina Campaign is the common designation for a series of military operations between 1858 and 1862, launched by a joint naval expedition force on behalf of the French Empire and the Kingdom of Spain against the Nguyễn dynasty of Dai Nam (as Vietnam is known as this time).\

This is initially a limited punitive action against the persecution and execution of French (and to a lesser extent Spanish) Catholic missionaries in Dai Nam.

The ambitious French emperor Napoleon III, however, authorizes the deployment of increasingly larger contingents, that subdue Dai Nam territory and establish French military and economic dominance.

The war concludes with the founding of the French colony of Cochinchina and inauguratesnearly a century of French colonial dominance in Indochina.